This video for Nova Scotian gypsy folk-punk ensemble Tom Fun Orchestra is so effectively simple, matching the imagery to the song perfectly.

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Spending a huge amount of money is easy when you’re without a mortgage, kids or a full time job. To ease my financial guilt, I recently put together this list of fifty fun, bizarre and slightly mad ways in which I managed to blow $50K over the years — buying myself nothing but amazing memories and the odd persistent stomach bug.

Here’s a great animation by papercut artist Jen Stark, who we’ve mentioned a couple times here. It’s simple, yet beautifully hypnotic. She’s got a new website up, too.

This is the new video for Vladislav Delay — the alter-ego of Finnish composer Sasu Ripatti, also known for his work as Luomo and Uusitalohas. Taken from the recent Tummaa album, the video for the single Toive was directed by Carolina Melis (who has previously made videos for labelmates Efterklang and Colleen) and Lorenzo Sportiello, and is a journey into a spectacular miniature landscape, with crystals forming and transforming into new substances. Read Vladislav Delay’s Secret Playlist.

This is a great animated short inspired by a StoryCorps recording of Joseph Robertson recounting an incident he experienced during the Battle of the Bulge. The entire thing is done with Photoshop, AfterEffects, and scanned pencil drawings. Not to denigrate his service or the poignancy of his story, but I can’t help but wonder, since Robertson lingers on the fact that the soldier he killed was ‘blond, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned’, if he would have been as haunted by the killing of a Japanese soldier or someone he may not have had thought of as having angelic qualities.

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I love watching other artists work, just like I love watching people cook. I love comparing my own methods with theirs, and it generally helps enormously with my own practice, giving me ideas I may not have come up on my own or just inspiring new and different paths to take. Every practicing artists should film themselves working like this video of Chris Piascik doing an improvised drawing as a tool for themselves as well as other artists.

Flashguns are a killer British trio who just survived a break-up following the recent departure of keyboard player, Oliver Wright. I’m delighted the guys chose to run strong as a three-piece and recorded some acoustic sessions on the road while supporting Bombay Bicycle Club’s UK tour. Before you watch Samuel Johnston’s interesting van acoustic version of their single, I Don’t Not Love You, I suggest you listen to the studio version and Lagos Boys Choir remix [below] to get a feel for the track’s full glory.

In the midst of all the apprehension and panic about the current world events we see on TV and in printed media, The LOVE POLICE intervene on our daily toil with a fresh perspective. And they are about to get hits, a lot of hits. Danny and Charles have injected us with an inoculation against the tyranny of the tube, and I for one, am interested. This diabolical duo have inserted themselves into our drone-like days of commuting to and from a box with flourescent lights which separates us from our spouses and children.

I feel like I’m getting the message loud and clear. I mean, I actually feel like an idiot for not having made the time to completely think the Government, Media, and Corporate love triangle through more competely. I could still be walking through life thinking, “Man, in this ‘Down Economy,’ I’m lucky if I have a job, and therefore should focus all my attention on trading my valuable time, family, health, and social life for less and less money. And I gotta make sure I have the right cable package, my McDonalds, and my MTV. A guy’s got his priorities!”

The LOVE POLICE’s light-hearted approach to opening minds and educating the sheepish masses is neither offensive nor heavy, but rather a crowd-engaging and humorous group experience. Their short films waver between documentary and commentary , and subject matter touches everything from pandemics to paparazzi.

Watch the video. If you laugh, good! Watch it again. And again. And remember to actually listen. Then when the media’s anesthesia finally wears off, listen to how you really feel. Aha, made you think!

The LOVE POLICE are making me think and their tightrope act of art, philosophy, and activism makes a compelling argument to use the next time you are hanging out at the water cooler: Choose Love, Not Fear.

Oh, the joy! When I was a kid, growing bigger amongst the winding roads and sandy beaches of Bondi, I used to love watching The Wombels on our tiny, beat-up TV. The theme song in particular was a blast. Perhaps Kanye could do a remix?

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Studies suggest that the mere act of smiling, whether or not you are actually happy, will help make you happier. Would Lauren McCarthy’s Happiness Hat — a device that provides pain feedback in the form of a jab in the back of the head if you stop smiling — actually help to make you happier?

Ok, so the leadsinger of this Australian band, Powerage, is barely into his teens, and already he sings like Axl Rose and Brian Johnson’s love child. Perhaps he is? They are unbelievably good, and will rip it up on stage for many years to come. For those about to rock, Powerage salutes you.

This band is one of the most promising acts to appear in Chicago in the past few years. Their live shows have set them apart from their stoner-spazz rock counterparts, with an elaborate light set up that they bring to each show. Yes, you see correctly, lead vocalist joe is ‘playing’ the lights. I can’t imagine these guys ever quit working being that they build their own amps, and drummer, Mizzola plays in like ten other great Chicago bands. Look out for Lasers and Fast and Shit’s new 7″, Introduction, out now.

Here’s the new video from Brooklyn based duo Talk Normal off their debut full-length, Sugarland, which dropped this week. Check their tour schedule for a show near you.

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So what if they look like employees eight and twelve respectively at Microsoft? Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience create the most achingly beautiful music since Nick Drake.

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine’s version of America’s Got Talent. She uses a giant lightbox, dramatic music, imagination and ’sand painting’ skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII. If you have a spare eight and half minutes in your life, it’s well worth checking out.

Long Beach-based painter and sculptor Kiel Johnson made a time-lapse video of him constructing an elaborate, oversized replica of a twin-lens reflex camera complete with strap. The most amazing thing is that the camera actually takes pictures — it’s a basic pinhole camera.

We may be a little late on this one, but as someone who could barely get one side out back in those battle weary days of the 80s, the feat of this three year-old in solving the entire damn thing is well worth watching. Again. And again.

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This fan video of the epic Faithless track, Sun To Me, has a Baraka feel about it — a clever parody on the hurried madness that is our day-to-day urban life.

From the same TV world that brought us Human Tetris comes this terrifying reality prank show where unsuspecting people are filmed while they think a real-life shooting is going on around them. In this particular installment, a man is ‘tricked into thinking that he’s filming a documentary about telephone scammers’, during which a fierce sniper attack is launched on the room. Funny? Kinda. But cruelly so.

What 80s indie kid didn’t have at least a bit of a crush on whacky pop starlet Kate Bush during her Wuthering Heights days? I mean, really. The hair, the movements, the bizarre waves from her semi-crouched stance. Her other big hit, Babooshka, wasn’t half bad either. And this version, by the sultry kitsch Romanian singer Miss Platnum, does it justice. Just.